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<http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=3960885&op=1&view=all&subj=393758568767&aid=-1&auser=0&oid=393758568767&id=123797926589> Omeka - Serious Web Publishing Omeka<http://www.facebook.com/note_redirect.php?note_id=393758568767&h=d87fc06003728e993ba3e5823118ad12&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.omeka.org>is a project of the Center for History and New Media<http://www.facebook.com/note_redirect.php?note_id=393758568767&h=23d0a5716a4a3c47b2d64f63e47286c8&url=http%3A%2F%2Fchnm.gmu.edu%2F>, George Mason University<http://www.facebook.com/note_redirect.php?note_id=393758568767&h=abd14fe1b08827638c52e2c6bd2d86c5&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gmu.edu%2F>. Serious development on the platform started back in 2007, after the Institute of Museum and Library Services awarded a grant<http://www.facebook.com/note_redirect.php?note_id=393758568767&h=a176a4ae58f83dc0d26e93fc86f593a8&url=http%3A%2F%2Fomeka.org%2Fblog%2F2007%2F10%2F01%2Fomeka-awarded-imls-grant%2F>to fund Omeka development. This innovative web publishing platform, based on the LAMP stack<http://www.facebook.com/note_redirect.php?note_id=393758568767&h=0a49f99b27098c3262894ce0edd6548a&url=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FLAMP_%2528software_bundle%2529>aims to offer easy to use functionality for it's core use case: building a website with an archive of items. Currently, the 1.2 version of the software is being offered as a download under a GPL license, as well as a hosted/SaaS solution, Omeka.net. The hosted solution is very new, and entered Alpha stage at the end of April. This Alpha is currently closed, but a public beta will become available to everyone in the fall 2010. As the system is entirely different from DSpace, let's zoom in on the areas in which they are similar, before diving into a selection of attractive Omeka features from which DSpace could learn. *Item metadata format and harvesting standards* <http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=3960889&op=1&view=all&subj=393758568767&aid=-1&auser=0&oid=393758568767&id=123797926589> Home to the OAI-PMH and OAI-ORE standards Like in DSpace, Omeka adheres to the Simple Dublin Core metadata standard. This means it's also easy to use, but would have the same difficulties in representing relations between metadata fields and more complex metadata. Omeka also comes with an OAI-PMH interface to make data available through harvesters like OAISTER and OpenDOAR. * Browsing* Looking at one of Omeka's implementations, the Lincoln at 200 archive, the Omeka browse interface allows browsing by title and date. It's also possible to filter items included in the listing by tags and the different collections. <http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=3960916&op=1&view=all&subj=393758568767&aid=-1&auser=0&oid=393758568767&id=123797926589> Lincoln at 200 browsing interface This is similar, but somewhat limited compared to the approach of the recent DSpace Discovery work<http://www.facebook.com/note_redirect.php?note_id=393758568767&h=91f6277427a4b6913d3ddfc53a091c26&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwiki.dspace.org%2Fconfluence%2Fdisplay%2FDSPACE%2FDSpace%2BDiscovery>. Another installation, the Hurricane Digital Memory bank<http://www.facebook.com/note_redirect.php?note_id=393758568767&h=e40e8ef9b90df01e108092388f3e07e6&url=http%3A%2F%2Fhurricanearchive.org%2Fbrowse%2F%3FobjectType%3D4%2F>illustrates that also on file-types can be filtered. *Searching* Another showcase project, the Memorial Stadium 1924-1992 project illustrates how closely the browse and search systems are integrated in Omeka. Search results are displayed in exactly the same way as browse results. Without looking under the hood, it seems that searching is just a fashion of applying another filter on the browse results. This has the advantage that users only need to get acquainted with one results-display interface. The downside seems to be that no advanced searching, where different criteria can be linked to eachother, is currently present. *Theming* Theming and ensuring that the user interface can be (easily) customized has been one of the main drivers behind the development of Manakin, the Apache Cocoon based XML user interface for DSpace. DSpace 1.6 Manakin ships with a few different themes and new themes can be added as easily as adding a folder, and activating the theme in the xmlui.xconf file. For Omeka, a large array of different themes<http://www.facebook.com/note_redirect.php?note_id=393758568767&h=150f97300288a9909c1072fa300af3fa&url=http%3A%2F%2Fomeka.org%2Fadd-ons%2Fthemes%2F>is available. The offered zipfiles contain custom css, php, javascript and image files. Because custom php files are included as well, it looks like you will have to transfer any customizations you made to your previous theme, to the files of the new theme. After these strokes of similarity, let's get to the Omeka approaches and features from which DSpace could really learn. *Exhibit building* In short, Omeka enables you to build an exhibition based on a selection of items. Interesting to note is that it's not JUST a selection of items, as you can add narrative text and really create a complete and self explanatory whole with the items. When reflecting back on having something like this in DSpace, this could really be a killer feature that helps to overcome the rigid collection/community structure in which DSpace items need to fit. But on the other hand, a clever DSpace administrator can already customize DSpace collection and community homepages to function like such exhibition pages. However, it's currently a lot easier achieved in Omeka. *Tagging* Throughout the system, tags are much more explicitly visible and used in Omeka, compared to DSpace. Filtering by tag in the browse window, having a limited selection of metadata fields (including tags) on the item view pages, a tag-cloud view, ... are just some of the examples illustrating this approach. It's not rocket science, but looking at an Omeka installation really illustrates that tags and specific keywords are still under-exploited in the DSpace user interface. *Plugins* According to the full feature list<http://www.facebook.com/note_redirect.php?note_id=393758568767&h=3808a23cece72917f38fc7c596666fc4&url=http%3A%2F%2Fomeka.org%2Ffiles%2Fdocs%2FFeaturelist.pdf>, Omeka's plugin API makes development of plugins to suit the needs of your project quick and easy. Going through the list of available plugins<http://www.facebook.com/note_redirect.php?note_id=393758568767&h=263803a8f0552eee9dd2523969c8bbff&url=http%3A%2F%2Fomeka.org%2Fadd-ons%2Fplugins%2F>, it's undeniable that for a fairly new platform, the plugins already cover a wide range of functionality. Atom feeds, Cool Iris Image plugin integration, Google Maps integration, ... you name it. <http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=3960899&op=1&view=all&subj=393758568767&aid=-1&auser=0&oid=393758568767&id=123797926589> Zend Framework a key infrastructural component of Omeka >From a technical point of view, experienced PHP programmers will have a field day with Omeka's well defined hooks<http://www.facebook.com/note_redirect.php?note_id=393758568767&h=d99ef628824f1ed85e2ac7e064d7b39b&url=http%3A%2F%2Fomeka.org%2Fcodex%2FPlugin_API%2FHooks>and filters<http://www.facebook.com/note_redirect.php?note_id=393758568767&h=c39a2b988d7c85e1d4a61be216556e72&url=http%3A%2F%2Fomeka.org%2Fcodex%2FPlugin_API%2FFilters>. If those are not enough, they can directly call the underlying Zend Framework routines as well. Comparing Omeka's API approach to the DSpace's Services Framework<http://www.facebook.com/note_redirect.php?note_id=393758568767&h=a6a238300b014de993e4024439ea2c14&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwiki.dspace.org%2Fconfluence%2Fdisplay%2FDSPACE%2FDSpace%2BServices%2BFramework>is too technical for the scope of this article, but as a general non-developer observation, it's clear that the Omeka API approach is more lightweight and easier to get into than the DSpace approach. *Conclusion* Considering that Omeka emerged from the Center for History and New Media<http://www.facebook.com/note_redirect.php?note_id=393758568767&h=23d0a5716a4a3c47b2d64f63e47286c8&url=http%3A%2F%2Fchnm.gmu.edu%2F>, it's easy to understand that the platform more tightly embraces specific usecases in humanities, compared to the more generic platform DSpace. From an outsider's point of view, it's hard to assess how much customization it took to put up the gorgeous showcase projects, but the fact that the platform enabled people to pull these off, is certainly an achievement. Sheila Brennan, End User Outreach Coordinator for Omeka commented on this article: *I think we see Omeka and DSpace as serving different needs--publishing collections versus archiving collections, but they of course can be used together. In general, also, smaller institutions do not tend to run DSpace installations but might be more likely to run Omeka.* kindest regards, Bram Luyten @mire - http://www.atmire.com Technologielaan 9 - 3001 Heverlee - Belgium 533 2nd Street - Encinitas, CA 92024 - USA http://www.togather.eu - Before getting together, get t...@ther
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